


Ordeals

by wanderingaesthetic



Category: Final Fantasy IV
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Gen, Suicidal Ideation, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:52:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22035850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingaesthetic/pseuds/wanderingaesthetic
Summary: Cecil had to face one demon on Mt. Ordeals. Kain had to face several.
Relationships: Cecil Harvey & Kain Highwind, Rosa Joanna Farrell & Cecil Harvey & Kain Highwind, Rosa Joanna Farrell & Kain Highwind
Comments: 5
Kudos: 25





	Ordeals

Cecil climbed Mt. Ordeals with no less than three mages fighting beside him. Kain did it alone. Apart from the conviction that this was something he had to do himself, anyone he might have asked to accompany him was currently a guest of honor at a combined wedding and coronation.

Without Scarmiglione’s evil influence, most of the sacred mountain’s dead remained still in the earth, and the few straggling zombies fell quickly to Kain’s Holy Lance. He paused at the summit to rest, took off his helm, and let the wind ruffle his hair as he imagined what he was missing back in Baron. He savored the image of Cecil and Rosa, now royals and celebrated heroes, being feted with flowers in their hair.

If Kain were a good friend, he would have been there, but Kain wasn’t a good friend, that was the problem. When he was fighting alongside Cecil and Rosa and Rydia and Edge, trying to fend off the end of the world, he could focus on nothing but the goal, the next breath, the next fight. Now, in relative peace, a restless energy wouldn’t let Kain sleep, made him want to gouge his fingernails into his own flesh until he tore out strips of meat. Food tasted like ash and weighed like lead in his stomach.

He knew his absence would grieve Cecil and Rosa, but looking at them made him want to weep, or vomit. He didn’t trust himself not to make a scene of the ceremony, or worse, and on the long list of things he had done to grieve Cecil and Rosa, missing their wedding seemed trivial. He had to do the only thing he knew to do in order to purify himself, or die, or finally go mad.

He stared at the monument, steeled himself. He strode forward and found himself in a cavernous room with the same crystalline walls and floor, and the same eerie hush, as a crystal room. Kain had attempted to kill Cecil in just such a place. In the dim, sourceless light, Kain could just see his own reflection in the mirrored surface of the wall ahead of him.

“The hour is late, and no other road remains,” a voice echoed. “You’ve already found the weapon you need, though you dirty it with your traitorous hands.”

“Break from your past and overcome your darkness!” Kain shifted his grip on his lance, and looked for the source of the voice, but found nothing. “You must defeat your faithless self!”

“Or die,” said the Kain in the mirror, advancing slowly though the real Kain had not moved. The mirror Kain walked through the reflective surface between them as if it were water, materializing in the real world.

Cecil had told Kain what had happened to him in this room, that his double told him a true paladin would lay down his sword. Knowing this, Kain threw aside his lance, and shifted his shield to his left hand as his doppelganger attacked.

He was fast, faster than Kain himself. Kain caught one, two, three thrusts on his shield as he retreated. His doppelganger stepped back and spun his spear with a flourish, and on the next thrust, batted the real Kain’s shield away from his center with the butt of his lance. With an enormous, powerful swing, he threw Kain’s shield arm wide.

Too wide. Kain felt his shoulder pop from its socket, and felt the crunch through his entire skeleton as his elbow hyper-extended and broke.

As Kain hissed through his teeth, stunned with pain, helplessly struggling to pull his shield up with his useless arm, his doppelganger jumped, and slammed the tip of his lance into Kain’s heart.

**

Kain awoke with a shuddering gasp, clutching at his chest. His heart still beat, his left arm and his armor were somehow still whole, and he lay in the stone circle near the summit of the mountain, his lance and his shield beside him. Night had fallen, and a single half moon lit the barren landscape behind ghostly wisps of cloud.

Kain sat up and removed his helm to better take in steadying breaths and feel the cold night air on his skin, reassuring him that he still lived. He remembered the pain as his arm shattered, the crack of his armor breaking under his double’s lance.

He didn’t remember dying.

Why wasn’t he dead?

What had he done wrong?

After many minutes sitting on the ground, Kain gathered his senses. His hands shook as he struck flint over tinder to start a fire. He had survived worse than the damage that had been done to his arm, and felt shaken and weak after he had been healed with a curaga, but he had never survived a blow that rent his heart. Yet the familiar way he felt made him believe the fight with his doppelganger had been all too real.

He ate jerky and drank water from his pack, and slowly and carefully took off his armor so he could sleep, rubbing at his breastbone under his tunic to assure himself that there was no wound. Even though he was now healed and whole, he knew his body needed rest after suc h an injury. Yet he lay in his bedroll, and stared at the embers of his fire, and could not sleep.

How had his dark side been so strong?

**

He awoke not long after dawn with dew in his hair. He stretched, and went through a few exercises with lance and shield in order to prepare himself for another day of fighting.

Though he did not know how to win.

He had come up through the ranks of dragoons through vigorous practice and bull-headed tenacity. If there was a dragoon that was a better fighter than him, he challenged him again and again and again until he could defeat him in a sparring match nine times out of ten. It did not make him many friends, and made him enemies with many senior dragoons, but it taught him how to sharpen himself against a sparring partner, how to find the weaknesses in their technique, and strengthen his own technique, until he could defeat them.

Cecil, though not a dragoon, was one of the few people he could never best regularly, and Kain’s constant challenges had only seemed to strengthen him.

He could challenge his doppelganger again and again and again until he won.

He could.

But there were some opponents it had taken him years to learn how to defeat. Could he do this? Take a fatal blow like that? Every day? For years? His hand found its way to the armor guarding his chest. He did not know how he survived, what magic or mysterious benefactor had saved his life. He didn’t know whether whatever power had saved him would give him the number of chances he would need. Or if it would even give him one more.

And why hadn’t what worked for Cecil worked for him?

Cecil was a better fighter than Kain. It pained Kain to admit it, but admit it he did. Yet Kain could still score hits on Cecil and beat him perhaps one time in three. What had been easy for Cecil might be more difficult for Kain, but shouldn’t be impossible.

Perhaps Kain’s ordeal had a different solution than Cecil’s. After all, Cecil’s dark side had _told_ Cecil to lay down his sword.

Kain’s had told him to die.

Kain stared off the mountainside at the clouds settling into the valley. That couldn’t be right. He should have died, and that didn’t seem to be the solution. What else had it said? That his traitor’s hands dirtied his holy lance.

So the lance wouldn’t help him? Or maybe it was his hands that would have to go.

Kain stared down at them, cased in his carapace-like gauntlets.

He shook himself. This was ridiculous. He was simply going to have to go in and fight again.

He took the short walk over the bridge to the monument, steeled himself, and touched it once more.

“The hour is late, and no other road remains,” the mysterious voice said again, and Kain’s double emerged from the mirror. “Break from your past and overcome your darkness.”

“Or die,” his image said again.

Kain adjusted his grip on his lance. Not attacking hadn’t worked for him, so this time Kain went on the offensive as soon as his image left the mirror. His image weaved in and out of his blows, rarely even needing to lift his shield to block them.

It took Kain some time to notice that his doppelganger was making no attacks. Kain reeled back and paused, holding his shield in guard. His doppelganger made no move to attack. Kain dropped his shield and his lance to his sides, exposing himself. His double kept its guard up, but did not advance. Kain lifted his lance again, attempted to feint to his opponent’s side to create an opening in his guard, but the doppelganger did not take the bait.

Kain tried to attack again in earnest, a few blows glanced off his opponents shield, but he was no closer to defeating him.

His opponent seemed to be tireless, where Kain was not.

“What do you want from me!?” Kain finally demanded, dropping his guard.

“What do YOU want from me?” his double said in Kain’s voice.

Kain stared at his double for a long moment, threw down his weapon and his shield. When his opponent made no move to attack, Kain threw himself down on the floor too.

What did he want? What DID Kain want?

“I want to break free of my past, like you said,” Kain finally answered.

“And how can I help you with that?” his double asked. Kain recognized some of his own bitter sarcasm, reflected back at him. He didn’t like it.

“I don’t know.”

“Then perhaps the answer doesn’t lie in fighting yourself.”

“I’m not, now.”

“Perhaps you should be,” Kain’s double said.

Kain jerked up, too late, and his opponent’s lance pierced his heart a second time.

**

Kain awoke in the stone circle again. The sun was setting. How long had he been out?

Without rest this time, he went back to the monument. Again he was in the crystal room.

“The hour is late and no other road remains,” the voice said again. “Break free from your past and overcome your darkness.”

“Or die,” a voice said from the mirror, but it wasn’t Kain’s voice this time.

It was Cecil, in the full glory of his Paladin’s armor.

“Cecil?” Kain asked, his guard up, unsure whether he should defend or attack, talk or retreat.

The false Cecil strode from the mirror, still speaking. “You gutless worm, you low thing. To think that I ever called you friend.”

Kain stepped back, his mouth dry, his guard still up. “You would have sold me, and Rosa, and this entire planet to darkness, for what? You disgust me.”

Kain swallowed. He had never heard this kind of contempt from Cecil, not even in the darkest of his Dark Knight days, certainly not as he looked now, as some avenging angel.

Kain stepped back and said nothing, because everything the false Cecil said was true.

“I wonder, Kain? Would you have raped her? Would you have taken Rosa against her will?”

“I—I didn’t—“

“Only for lack of opportunity,” Cecil spat. “She still wouldn’t have loved you, you know that, right? She would have hated you, and it would be no less than you deserve. She would hate you as I hate you.”

“You’re not him, you’re not Cecil,” Kain said.

“Then the real Cecil is a fool. He forgave you once and you literally stabbed him in the back. What kind of fool would give you a second chance?”

“I couldn’t help myself, I was being controlled by—“

“Really? Is that what it felt like? Is that what it felt like when you had me on your spear? It that what it felt like with my blood on your hands?”

Kain backed away, he didn’t want to remember, he didn’t want—

\-- _his spear in his hands, Cecil clutching his ribs, his blood dripping to the cave floor through the gaps in his armor, Rydia and Rosa yelling_ \--

“I don’t want to—“

“But you do remember.”

He did, the sick satisfaction as Cecil fell to his knees, his pained, wet gasp had caused Kain a physical pleasure in the pit of his stomach. His heart had quickened with it, a sick, ruthless satisfaction.

“You’re going to feel that again,” the false Cecil said, drawing his sword.

“No,” Kain said.

“No? Than you won’t defend yourself?” the false Cecil said, swinging his sword. The blow fell on Kain’s shield. “Finally, you’ve accepted your own _worthlessness?”_

“No,” said Kain, ducking under the false Cecil’s blade.

“I _never_ loved you,” Cecil said, continuing to advance on Kain. “Rosa never loved you. I think of how you used to run after us and I laugh. No wonder Rosa chose me over you. You were _desperate_ , pathetic. I only let you near me out of pity, and the king felt the same way. When I think of the times I called you brother it makes me sick.”

Kain blocked mechanically, trying not to listen, but unable to close his ears. He knew it wasn’t real, that these were things that the real Cecil would never say, but the words so confirmed Kain’s worst fears, and so strong was the illusion, that each word struck to his core regardless.

“I’m glad you’re gone, I’m glad you’re up here dying instead of ruining our wedding with your filth.”

One of the false Cecil’s messy slashes finally found Kain’s neck.

So sharp was the blade, and so clean the cut that Kain didn’t realize he was bleeding out until his vision grayed and he feel to his knees. He had a few brief moments of consciousness, the floor of the cavern smooth and cold and his own blood slick and sickly warm, until he woke again in the stone circle.

**

The next time Kain won, and Cecil, false but all too real, said “Kain, why?” as he coughed up blood, as his skin grayed and his lips blued, as the light went out behind his eyes and he died in Kain’s arms.

And the logical part of Kain’s brain knew it wasn’t real, that the real Cecil was at home in Baron, but the false Cecil’s blood was hot as it seeped onto Kain’s hands through the joints of his gauntlets, and his face was beautiful, and his death too near to the way Kain could have, in truth, for once and all killed his friend.

“I love you, I love you, I’m sorry,” Kain whispered as he closed the false Cecil’s eyes, and laid him gently on the mirror-smooth floor, and walked out into the real world, and daylight.

**

_Ordeals._ Kain thought, perching on a rock, staring off at the sunset over the mountains. _They don’t call it Mount Pleasures. Or Mount Walk in The Park._

**

The next time it was Rosa. Not confident and perfect as the false Cecil had been, but with blood and mud streaked on her face, her hair in loose tangles, afraid. She didn’t even walk out from the mirror.

“Rosa! Rosa, I won’t fight you! I won’t hurt you!”

She aimed an arrow at him, but desperate and shaken, it went wide.

“Get away from me! Don’t touch me!” she shrieked.

“Golbez isn’t in my mind anymore! I would never harm you willingly, you must know that!”

“I don’t know that!” she shouted and loosed another arrow at him that he caught on his shield.

He blocked a few more of her arrows. A single archer in light armor had no chance alone against an armored dragoon, a fact both the real and false Rosa would be well aware of. She looked around desperately for an exit, and finding none, collapsed in the shadows in apparent despair.

“Rosa?” Kain dropped his weapons and ran for her. His shoulder slammed into the mirrored barrier as he darted forward to try to help her, and he could not reach her. “Rosa!” he shouted, pounding against the barrier, and heard too late the hiss of her whisper, saw too late her two fingers raised in an incantation.

Searing, burning more painful than fire. Holy. Its light was all-encompassing, annihilating.

And then there was blackness.

**

He stoked the fire listlessly. His body sagged. He needed to sleep, but was afraid to. The borders between his nightmares and the visions in the monument were beginning to blur.

**

Next time, Cecil and Rosa appeared together, not in their armor, but Rosa in a simple dress, Cecil in soft trousers and tunic. They leaned casually against the wall, inside the mirror, Cecil with his back to it, Rosa on one elbow, gazing on Cecil. As if they had paused on a stroll through the gardens of Baron castle.

In reality, in the past, Kain had dogged them as they had done just that. He hadn’t done it on purpose, at first. He had stumbled upon them, and they had not noticed. He had found the temptation to watch them, to listen to them, too much to bear. He was never close enough to hear their conversation, only snippets of their laughter and the tone of their voices. He had the paranoiac’s dread that they were laughing at him, even as he knew that they could be thinking of no one but each other. He had witnessed them kiss, this way, and thrown himself behind a pillar, listening to them, touching his own hand to his lips.

There was no tree or pillar to throw himself behind here, but the pair in the mirror didn’t seem to notice Kain.

_What new devilry is this? What am I meant to do?_

“I’m glad you’re out of that armor,” Rosa said, cupping Cecil’s cheek. “Where I can see your handsome face.”

Cecil remained leaning languidly on the wall, and took Rosa’s hand in both of his and kissed it. “You are too good to me,” Cecil said softly.

“I can be very good to you indeed,” Rosa said, and twined her fingers in his hair, and pulled him down into a kiss, long and hungry. His hands slid down her body and pulled her close, and Kain really ought to look away, as he really should have walked away when he saw them in the garden, walked away, all the way to his chambers and closed the door behind him, but he didn’t have the will then and he didn’t have the will now.

Cecil turned Rosa where he was pressing her into the wall, deepening the kiss. Kain put his hand to his mouth. It had never gone this far in Baron’s gardens. He could never have heard them then, either, but now he heard the soft, wet sound as their lips pulled away from each other, as Rosa made a deep “mmm” sound as Cecil cupped her breast.

Kain couldn’t walk away, couldn’t make his presence known, couldn’t bear the thought of them pulling away from each other because of him. That was the problem. That had always been the problem. They were too beautiful together. He could never truly desire to pull them apart.

Kain fell to his knees as the ghostly Rosa began unlacing Cecil’s tunic and he in turn caressed her thigh under her dress. Kain’s inaction was certainly crossing the threshold from reluctance to interrupt into voyeurism, but Kain also knew that this wasn’t real, that the real Cecil and Rosa could never know or condemn him for this, so he could watch, hungrily and avidly. His cock became more uncomfortable in the confines of his armor, but more importantly his heart ached to see them, locked as he was out of the circle of their arms. If he were an artist he might have painted them, if he were a bard, he might have written a song. But he was only himself, and watched with mixed exultation and shame as the ghostly images of his friends undressed each other all the way until Rosa moaned Cecil’s name into his shoulder.

Although this trial did not end with his death, the figures in the mirror faded. Kain knew he had failed, and turned to go.

**

_I have never been first in anyone’s heart,_ Kain thought, perched on a rock near his campsite again.

It was a truth that lay at the very bottom of Kain’s soul, below strata of pride and bitterness. It was the well from which all his drive to excel, and all his failures, sprang. He could never have been good enough for his father. Kain had held the second highest rank in Baron’s military and Kain knew that if Ricard Highwind had been alive he would have asked Kain why he did not hold the first. Kain knew he could not have pleased him, and yet, he wanted to, even after the man was dead.

That Cecil, a man who Kain admired and loved, held that first rank somehow made the failure worse and not better, because any longing Kain had to best him, to gain recognition over him, was a slight to his dear friend.

_Let me have something!_ Kain thought. _Let me not always be begging for scraps!_

Even as Kain had the thought, he felt shame. It was unworthy, ungrateful. Cecil deserved all he had. He had deserved the Captaincy of the Red Wings. He deserved to be king. He deserved Rosa’s love.

_What do I deserve?_

_What would I do to a man who has done to Cecil what I have done? Who has done to Rosa what I have done?_

Kain answered his own question without hesitation.

_I would kill him._

Kain nodded, and slid from his perch. He removed his helm, then his gauntlets, in order to more easily remove the rest of his armor, leaving him in leggings and tunic.

Because with his armor on, the fall might not kill him.

The wind was high as he approached the cliff, whipping tendrils of his hair across his face, making it difficult to see. He approached the edge, and looked down. The rocks were far below, and sharp. Kain felt a flicker of fear. He had known pain equal to the brief pain of impact, but… if this suffering was his life, how much worse would be his hell?

He swallowed. _No worse than I deserve._

Still he hesitated. Mount Ordeals was travelled by very few, and his body would fall far from the path. It would be long before anyone found him.

But his armor and pack would remain at the stone circle. Cecil and Rosa would eventually send someone out here to find him when he didn’t return, and from his empty armor, would deduce what Kain had done….

Kain backed away from the cleff so hurriedly that he fell on his backside.

_What the hell am I doing? What the hell was I about to do?_

He crawled away from the cliff’s edge on all fours. A howl escaped his throat, and he pounded the ground with his fist.

Because despite everything, the fools still loved him, and Kain could imagine all too well what he himself would feel if Rosa or Cecil threw themselves off a mountain, how he would feel knowing that one of them had felt the sort of desperation that would drive them to it, knowing that they died broken and alone… The pain of it gripped his heart, gripped his throat.

He couldn’t do that to them.

He had been about to do that to them.

“ _What am I supposed to do_?” Kain asked the wind in a ragged scream that tore his throat. “I can’t live!” He bashed his fist into the earth until his hand bled. “I can’t _die!”_

His hands found his helmet, and he bashed that into the ground too, over and over again, with all his strength, until he collapsed, sobbing.

_I have to endure,_ he thought when his eyes dried.

**

“Break from your past and overcome your darkness,” said the voice once more.

“Or die,” finished another voice from the shadows, deep and resonant.

Fear that Kain didn’t know he still had in him gripped his heart as Golbez strode forward, his already towering height made immense by his armor.

Golbez rarely removed his helmet, but he always had when he and Kain were alone. So he appeared now, his long, silvery hair falling down his breastplate. Kain realized for the first time how very much Golbez looked like Cecil. He had the same pale skin and hair, the same slightly inhuman beauty. Perhaps that’s why Golbez had always shown Kain his face, so that he would be reminded of Cecil, and trust him implicitly.

Even so, the brothers weren’t entirely alike. Their characters shone through the lines of their faces, Cecil’s kindness, Golbez’s cruelty.

“Kain, my good friend,” Golbez said with a smile that showed teeth, opening his gauntleted hands to him in greeting. He had no weapons that Kain could see.

Kain raised his lance anyway.

“Oh, Kain, lower your weapon. Did I ever do you harm?”

“You did worse,” Kain replied.

“Did I not listen to you as no one else has? Did I not guide you?”

Indeed, when they first met it had seemed to Kain that he and Golbez became fast friends. Kain told the sorcerer things he had never told anyone, about his father, about his frustrations with the king, and with Cecil.

“Only because your magic loosened my tongue,” Kain spat.

“You needed only the barest nudge. Your envy, your _need,_ radiated off of you. I’m surprised I was the first to notice,” Golbez gave a tiny mocking gasp. “Perhaps I wasn’t the first? Perhaps all those you claim to _love_ merely denied you succor?”

“I know better than to listen to you now, Golbez.”

“But don’t you remember? I don’t need you to listen, anymore. I’m already there,” Golbez said, tapping his temple. “I’m already in your head.”

Golbez’s words seemed to echo. The bottom dropped out of Kain’s stomach.

The first time Golbez had taken control of Kain’s mind he wove a subtle web, pulling strings of that web, leading Kain to make decisions he’d never make on his own without ever questioning the wrongness of them.

The second time Golbez’s control had been brutal. Like Kain was a puppet whose strings were being pulled. Like this.

Nothing was in focus except for Golbez, whose laughter was echoing around the chamber, echoing in Kain’s head.

Kain squeezed his eyes shut. _I fought him off before, I can fight him again._

“I’m there,” Golbez said, practically shrieking with laughter. “I’m still there!”

With a mighty effort, Kain turned to run.

“You’ll never know whether your thoughts are your own ever again!” Golbez called after him.

**

_Golbez wasn’t in control of his actions either,_ Kain thought as he collapsed in the grass on the other side of the monument.

_In any case he’s far away now, on his way to whatever star his and Cecil’s father came from._

The thought didn’t slow Kain’s shuddering breaths.

_Golbez was controlled by Zeromus, and Zeromus is still out there,_ Kain reminded himself _. We merely turned him…_ it… _away._

Even now Zeromus could reach inside Kain’s mind and wield Kain as Kain wielded his own lance.

_Zeromus is hate itself. As long as there is more love in me than hate, he can find no foothold in my mind._

He thought of Rosa, and of Cecil, how he would endure any pain to keep them safe and well.

That was why he was here, after all.

He held the thought of them in his heart, two candles against the dark.

**

“Break free from your past and overcome your darkness,” said the dragoon in the shadows.

Kain looked around him, because it was the image of the man inside the glassy surface of the monument that had spoken, and not the sourceless voice as before.

“Not ‘or die’?” Kain asked.

“No. For I am the last,” the figure said, stepping out of the shadows.

For a moment Kain thought the man was another doppelganger of himself, clad in scale mail, white and pale blue, his face and head bare but for a crest of ornamental dragon wings that rose behind his ears.

But no, the man’s hair was a little too dark, his nose not quite as long.

“Father?” Kain asked.

“Don’t drop your guard, boy,” Ricard Highwind growled, charging for Kain with his spear.

Kain barely caught the blow on his shield, and the next, and the next.

Kain often held an advantage against human opponents merely by dint of being left handed. Though his father was right handed, he held no such advantage here.

Kain pressed his own attack. His father blocked one blow and turned the next by circling his spear around Kain’s lance, drawing him in. His father swung his shield at his face, Kain blocked it with his own, leaving himself open. Kain had to hop back to avoid the next spear-thrust, and still it grazed the interior of his forearm.

Ricard drew back and the pair circled each other, measuring one another.

“HAAA!” Ricard shouted, charging into his next attack. Kain blocked with his shield, at an angle precise enough that it turned the force of his father’s attack back against him. Ricard stumbled, but regrouped enough to Jump. Kain watched his trajectory, and with the same circling motion his father had used against him earlier, moved the tip of his spear enough that Ricard landed harmlessly to his right. Before Ricard could recover his guard, the tip of Kain’s lance was at his throat.

They panted, staring at each other. Kain realized that his lance was angled slightly down. He had grown a few inches taller than his father.

“Well fought, boy,” Ricard said, throwing spear and shield to the ground. “But don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“What?” said Kain, lowering the tip of his lance.

“Is the promised day come? Is there no more war? Does His Majesty have no need for his dragoons?”

“No. Yes. I mean… the dragoons are still needed,” Kain said in a voice that sounded quite stupid even to himself.

“Go, then,” Ricard gestured toward the exit with his head. “With my blessing,” he said, one gauntleted hand landing heavily on Kain’s shoulder.

With his touch, Kain’s armor glowed white and transformed into a mirror image of his father’s blue scale and white plate, his helm gone save for the dragon wings.

“Go on, go,” Ricard said. “But heal yourself first. And get your hair out of your face.”

Kain instinctively reached to smooth back a tendril of hair that had fallen into his eyes in the absence of his helm. “Heal myself?”

“Your right arm.”

Kain’s arm was already tender where Ricard’s spear had grazed him. His armor had prevented it from breaking the skin, but he knew that an angry bruise would be forming. He touched his other hand to the sore spot, and felt a tingling of power from his fingertips as a faint green glow flowed forth. A minor cure spell for a minor injury, but he could feel a wellspring of greater power still where that came from.

“I’ve never cast a spell before,” Kain said in wonder. It was a rare ability in a warrior. Rosa was remarkable for being able to wield a bow without diminishing her power as a white mage. To wield the power to resurrect alongside the training to kill was only the domain of a…

“Paladin,” Kain breathed.

“You’ve a holy calling now, don’t you forget it,” said his father’s voice, but when Kain looked up, he was gone.

**

Kain entered Baron through the Devil’s Road, a plain brown cloak thrown over his bright armor. He considered sneaking into the castle through the waterway, but decided against it. His return would be common knowledge soon enough.

The guard at the gate didn’t recognize him.

“I’m sorry, sir, I can’t give you admittance to the castle based merely on your—“

Before Kain and the guard could truly begin arguing, the portcullis behind the guard raised, and Cecil stepped forward.

“Sire!” the guard said, putting and fist to his chest and bowing his head in salute. “This man says—“

“I know what this man says,” said the King of Baron, taking Kain’s hand and pulling him into a hug.

“Lord Highwind?” the guard gasped. “Forgive me, I didn’t recognize your face!”

“Nothing to forgive, Hugo,” said Cecil as the two men pulled apart. “Kain so rarely took off his helm you cannot be expected to know him on sight. But I think that is changed now.” Cecil’s hands rested on Kain’s shoulders as he looked him over. “It seems you made the same journey I did. Take that cloak off.”

“Is that an order, majesty?” Kain asked, but he was already lowering his hood. He shrugged the cloak off and let it fall to the ground.

Cecil let out a low whistle. “Indeed you did take Mount Ordeals. But, come! Don’t stand on my doorstep.” Cecil led Kain into the courtyard. The guard saluted them as they left and the portcullis dropped behind them.

“What took you so long, Kain?” Cecil hissed. “I feared you were dead.”

Kain took several steps beside Cecil before he opened his mouth to answer. “You had one demon to face, I had several. Where is Rosa?”

“At court, representing both of us,” said Cecil.

“You shouldn’t have abandoned your duties in order to—“

“Shh,” Cecil said, holding up a hand. “I trust Rosa. I didn’t trust the rumors of your return, but I hoped. She will be happy to see you as well.”

“About that, I… I’m honored that you welcome me as a friend, but I would like to present myself, to the pair of you, as your subject.”

Cecil gave Kain a long look. “Whatever gives you peace,” he said seriously, but then a grin broke across Cecil’s face and Kain found his own lips turning upward at his friend’s joy.

They reached the throne room as Rosa was dismissing a lord. “I swear to you it will be—“ she saw Kain and took in the tiniest gasp, but quickly regained her composure. “I swear to you it will be done, Lord Candley.”

The man nodded and turn to go. As the guards shut the door behind him, Rosa darted forward to greet Kain, but Cecil held up a hand.

Cecil strode forward to take his seat at the throne, and Rosa followed his lead to take her seat beside him, prim and regal.

“Kain, say your peace,” Cecil said.

Kain knelt, not on one knee, as befit a man of his rank presenting himself to royalty, but with both knees to the ground. He lay his lance before him and lowered his forehead between his fists to where it was barely an inch above the ground. A loose lock of his hair swept the stone floor.

“Your majesties, I have done you both a great many wrongs,” Kain said, careful to raise his voice enough to be heard even with his face to the ground.

“Kain,” Rosa started.

“Please, let me speak,” Kain said, not looking up. He swallowed. “I kidnapped you, my Queen. I broke faith with the both of you. I attacked you. I aided your enemies. Knowing and understanding the depth of my crimes, I can neither leave your sides nor force you to endure my presence.”

“What then would you have us do?” Cecil asked, and his voice was not Cecil Harvey’s, but that of King Cecil of Baron.

“I must offer you no less than my life. I give it in blood if you will not take it in service.”

There was a moment’s silence in which Kain suspected Cecil and Rosa were conferring with each other without speaking.

“And if we were to decide that the best place for you to serve us was in the dungeons?” Cecil asked.

“That would be just, Majesty,” Kain said.

“What if we decided the best place for you to serve would be in the palace kitchens?” Rosa asked.

“Then I would do so joyfully, Your Majesty,”

“What if we were to decide,” Cecil said slowly. “That the best way for a man of your skill and record to serve was as captain of our dragoons? And that beyond that daunting task we must also ask that you serve as our friend and confidant?”

“Then I would serve to the best of my ability, and pray your faith in me is not misguided.”

“What if I were to do none of these things,” Cecil said, and Kain heard his footsteps slowly approaching the place where he knelt. “What if I were to decide I don’t want your blood or your service, and send you out of our sight?”

“Then I pray Your Majesty would be merciful,” Kain said, his voice quavering. “And kill me instead.”

Cecil was silent. Kain stared at the floor.

“Bring me my sword,” Cecil called. There was a flurry of motion as guards opened and closed the doors, and approached. Kain heard the sound of a sword being pulled from its sheath. He did not look up. He felt no fear.

“Look at me, Kain,” Cecil said, and the tip of Cecil’s sword pressed beneath Kain’s chin as Kain raised it to meet Cecil’s gaze. Cecil pressed, and Kain was forced to raise himself so as not to have his throat cut, until he was sitting on his knees. Their eyes locked. Kain felt himself quivering.

Cecil flicked the tip of his sword to Kain’s right shoulder and then arce it to his left. “I name you, Kain Highwind, a knight of the kingdom of Baron. I reinstate your rank as Lord Commander of the Dragoons of Baron and reinstate all rights to your family lands.”

Kain breathed for the first time in what felt like several minutes as Cecil sheathed his sword and sent it away with his guards. “Though I’m not sure any of that was ever formally revoked?” Cecil mused. “In any case, it’s official now. Welcome back, Kain. Stand. I have my first command for you.”

“Majesty?” said Kain, rising to his feet.

“Call me by my name.”

“Cecil,” Kain breathed, and shackles seemed to loosen from his heart with the name.

“Did you really think I would kill you?” Cecil asked as he pulled Kain into a hug.

“Sometimes I hoped.”

“That was a little cruel, Cecil,” Rosa said, and hugged Kain in turn.

“I think he needed me to understand that he was serious. Right, Kain?”

“Yes, thank you. Would you really have made me a scullery maid?” Kain asked Rosa.

“Don’t think I’ve entirely ruled it out yet, Lord Commander Highwind.”

“As you wish, Your Majesty.” Rosa gave him a look. “Rosa,” he corrected.


End file.
